252 



EDWARD W. BERRY 



Several competent geologists familiar with the Lignitic in Mississippi, 

 Alabama, Tennessee, and Arkansas are disposed to refer the leaf bearing 

 clays to that formation on the ground of lithologic resemblance. If this 

 reference be just, then the thickness of the formation may be less than that 

 assigned by Hilgard at Oxford and Johnson at Holly Springs, and even the 

 exposed thickness at La Grange may include an unknown amount of the 

 protean Lignitic deposits though no demarcation has ever been found. 



At one of the Oxford exposures, previously mentioned, the 

 Eocene clay lens is almost at the surface and overlies "typical 



Fig. i. — Diagram of exposure furnishing fossil leaves in the type area 



Lafayette materials." This section is shown diagrammatically 

 in Fig. i, and may be described as follows: 



SECTION EAST OF I.C.R.R. \ MILE NORTH OF OXFORD STATION 

 No. i. Brown loam 



2. Rather coarse brown stratified sand 



3. Lens of gray to white siliceous clay, carrying abundant leaf 

 impressions 



4. Stratified orange sand 



5 . Lens of gray siliceous clay , with poorly preserved leaf impres- 

 sions 



6. Coarse brown cross-bedded sands separated by ferruginous 

 indurated bands 1 to 3 inches in thickness. Replaced hori- 

 zontally by pinkish or grayish buff finer sands . . . 10-12 



Fig. 2 is from a photograph of this outcrop, the fossil plants 

 having come from near the top of the exposure at the "nose" 

 just below the small tree shown in the center of the picture. The 

 clays at this point are siliceous and do not contain an extensive 

 flora, and the collections consist largely of the abundant remains 



o- 4 



